Talok leapt to her feet as consciousness returned to her. When she’d fallen unconscious, she’d been attacked. While Talok had powerful telepathic and telekinetic powers (as well as an array of other, more secret abilities), there was little she could have done when the room she was trapped in filled with sedative gasses. One sharp breath was all it took to steal Talok’s senses.
That hadn’t been the entirety of the conflict though. Talok and her team of Vahla Warriors had travelled to a neutral world for a meeting with both their strange, waterborne allies, the Vrekans, and the former Epanian races, the Torr and the Lanex, to discuss an uninhabited world on the border of Vrekan and Torr territories. Both the Torr and the Vrekans claimed ownership of what was nothing more than a stray, rocky moon, and the Lanex and the Vohra were acting as intermediaries, offering balance and neutrality. After some careful examination, both the neutral parties determined that the moon’s orbit remained within Vrekan territories 80% of the time, making the Vrekans’ claim to ownership stronger, but the Torr argued that the Vrekans weren’t using the planet for any real reason, and that was enough to justify their ownership.
At that point, Talok had personally stepped in, explaining that the Torr’s desires to use something had nothing to do with ownership, and if they wanted the moon, they would have to purchase it from the Vrekans. Of course, the Torr immediately made an insultingly low offer, so insulting that even the lower Vohra (who had zero interest in money) felt angry. The Lanex instead suggested that a survey be done by external neutral races before any prices be discussed. Agreements and plans were made, and everyone went their separate ways.
Talok thought that meeting had gone very well, and she was surprised at how agreeable the Lanex counsellors were. Turns out, the Torr seemed to disagree, and as soon as Talok’s ship was in interspecies territories, a Torr fight-sector ship (something most beings had never seen) immediately uncloaked and opened fire on her. Considering that the Torr were supposedly a pacifist race with no central military, the attack had caught Talok and her crew by surprise, and, well…
Despite her best efforts, despite desperately trying to hold the ship together with her telekinesis, Talok had failed. The small Vohran vessel essentially disintegrated, and all her fellow Vahlan Warriors had perished in the depths of space, the close-to-absolute-zero temperatures killing them quickly. Talok had only survived because of her unnatural hidden abilities, and she’d attempted to board the fight-sector ship to avenge her fellow Vohra, but the Torr had come prepared, trapped her in a special room and knocked her out.
But they didn’t kill Talok. And Talok didn’t really know why.
Now she was properly awake, Talok scanned the room with her telepathy, only to find that she seemed to be on a Lanex ship. However, the only other being in the room, despite looking like a Lanex, didn’t seem to be one. From what Talok knew of the Lanex, they were not supposed to have yellow eyes.
“Who are you?” Talok immediately demanded as she threw herself out of bed and expanded the blades from the bands on her wrists. “Why am I being imprisoned?”
“You’re not being imprisoned, just monitored briefly. The Frozen Scythes are trying to work out why you were captured and being shipped off to a secret lab deep in neutral territories. I’m trying to work out why Epani so desperately wants you, while also breaking a fuckton of rules just speaking to you.”
Talok blinked, then flicked her long tongue, running it across her two massive lower canines, the ones that stuck out from her jaw.
“I was… being taken to a lab?”
“From what I can tell, yeah. Epani realized you were special, she noticed that you’d somehow angered the Torr, she spotted you in interspecies space and she sent her loyalist Torr and Lanex servants after you. I’m sorry about your crew by the way. Not a good way to go, but at least it was quick.”
Talok blinked some more. She had suddenly worked out who this being was. “You are Sini’s Shadow!”
The Lanex-like being nodded. “I am. You can call me Arkay. I’m not supposed to be speaking to mortals right now, but, well, technically, you’re not mortal. Sini called you one of her ‘mistakes’, but you… don’t completely belong to Sini, like all Vohra do.”
“I… I do not understand.”
Arkay shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t blame you. From what I can tell, immortal, non-deity beings in this universe come from three places. The first are mortals that become immortal when Sini or I… don’t work correctly, and there’s five total. The second are deities from outside the universe that are trapped inside our universe now, but we’ve only found two of them. The third are what Sini calls ‘Kiniseon Beings’, individuals created by a… by another Life Goddess, who is now dead. We originally thought there were only twelve Kiniseon Beings, six of whom do not exist in this universe. But, well, here you are, number thirteen. Or number seven, since we don’t count the ones that don’t exist.”
“I…” Talok stuttered again, then quickly rubbed her earholes, not sure if she was hearing things right. “I was made by… not Blessed Sini?”
“Kinda. You were more… tampered with, I guess, after Sini made you. There’s weird time shenanigans going on, I don’t really get it either. But because you are a Kiniseon Being and not one of the first two types of immortal being, I THINK Epani wanted to capture you. She demands that all things tied to the old Allmaker be imprisoned, enslaved and monitored for all time. Which Sini and I believe is unfair because you didn’t choose to be a Kiniseon Being. And because of this, Epani’s probably going to keep on trying to find you and hunt you down. To make matters worse, the Torr covered their tracks, and, to the rest of the universe, Talok, the Representative of the Kalsa Guardians and the Vahla Overall, is considered dead, killed in an unfortunate ship malfunction.”
“Oh. That is… bad. Very bad. I do not like that.”
Arkay grunted. “No, me neither. I’m pretty pissed off about it all myself. Which is why I’m here, breaking rules about contact with mortals, to make sure Epani doesn’t lock you away forever. because once a Vohra is dead, the Vohra overall consider you gone completely. So you can’t just say “hey I’m alive” and be reintegrated into your nest.”
Talok glanced up at the Lanex, then sat back down on the bed. She retracted her wrist blades, then started rubbing her eyes, hiding tears.
“I am as good as dead now.”
“To your nest and your old duties, yes, but you’re still alive. We can start a new life for you.”
“I am Vohra and I am dead. No point.”
“If you give up, Epani’s going to swoop in, seal you away and make you wish you were dead…” Arkay sighed, then sat down on the bed next to Talok, putting an arm around her. “I know, it sucks. It hurts. But you do have two options. I would say three, but I didn’t realize that you are, weirdly, a spayed female.”
“Hah. Mistake. A big one. When I hatched, they thought I was male. No. I am female. But the process of de-sexing is the same. Very similar systems…” Talok rubbed her eyes some more, sniffing loudly. “Found out far, far too late. I only recently started calling myself ‘she’. Explains my de-sexed anger. Baby Vahyra are not supposed to be de-sexed, makes us weird…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. You are Sini’s Shadow. Not to do with the machinations of our Swarms. But you say I have options?”
“I do, actually!” Arkay did his best to be cheerful. “Luckily, Epani is shit at finding things. That’s why she made the Lanex the way they are, to search in the corners she, for some reason, can’t reach. All we have to do is disguise you beneath the scent of another immortal non-deity. Unfortunately, Xeno Dessaron One are way too obvious, and Spiritdrainer is too high-ranking. That leaves the Raptor and the Sinic Thraki.”
“I am confused again.”
“Well, let me explain. The first option is the quieter option. We send you to Kolasi, an abandon-world, where you’ll help Sini’s Thraki boyfriend Thassalin in killing Corruptiids, which are nasty monsters that like to terrorize the locals. You’ll be out on your own, free to explore the place, and it’ll be a peaceful life mostly. The second option is that you go and work for the Raptor as a House Fighter at the Great Dessaron Battle Arenas. The Raptor already helps me and Sini keep tabs on Xeno Dessaron One, and she’ll happily let you take out your anger on others. Even though you might end up being popular, Phovos’s scent will hide you, and Epani doesn’t watch arena stuff anyway.”
Talok’s tears dried up. The idea of having options was quite new to her. She’d always done her job of serving the highest ranked Vayhra Queens, bowing to their every request.
“I can choose?”
“Of course.”
“Hm. I like hitting things. Combat is enjoyable. Always wanted to test myself against others.”
“You want to be a gladiator?” Arkay asked.
“I do. Yes.”
Arkay smiled underneath his weird, black mask. This made Talok bare her tusks, the Vohran equivalent of a smile. The Thantophor briefly hugged Talok, then got up and changed his appearance, into that of a yellow-plated Skyavok. He then made his way to the door, knocking on it. It swiftly opened up, revealing an icy Lanex.
“Ataka?” Arkay swiftly greeted them.
“Oh… uh… Deathbringer…” Ataka, the captain of the Lanex ship they were currently on, stuttered. “Hello…”
“Sorry to throw you in the deep end like this, but I’m going to take Talok with me to safety. I’d normally entrust this to you, but Epani’s looking for her and I don’t want anyone being put in danger because of Epani being a bitch. She’s already pissed off at the Lanex and the Rethans as it is. If anyone asks what happened to Talok, tell them that you were attacked by a large, purple serpent.”
Ataka stared blankly at Arkay. “Uh, why?”
“Because Sini reclaiming one of her own is more believable than a death god taking interest in a Vohra. But, like, I’m doing this for Sini anyway, and Epani is far less likely to retaliate against Sini than she is me.”
“And what about Void’s Grasp? Should we… deal with them?”
“Yeah. Speeding, dangerous flying, illegal ownership of an unlicensed cryopod. Epani roped them into the smuggling, so don’t be too harsh, it’s hard to say no to a literal deity.”
“It’s a bit hard to say no to you, Deathbringer.”
“Fair, but, well, I’m chill. You can choose to not listen to me, if you want. I won’t judge…”
“Very well. Thank you, Deathbringer.”
“No worries, thank you too.”
With a small smile, Arkay wandered back into the room and took Talok by the hand.
“Is it time to go?” Talok chirped.
“It is, yes. Are you excited to have a new life?”
Talok hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. Will be… interesting. Different.”
Arkay smiled some more, then lifted Talok up into his arms and walked through the shadow in the corner of the room. He didn’t care if he was breaking more of Epani’s rules, he wasn’t going to let her ruin this poor creature’s life the same way she ruined his.